The prospect of retail dying off and just a few online players with massive warehouses scattered across the country should be a little alarming to people. It’s very centralized and very dependent upon the supply chain. Yes it’s cheaper but for how long? If there’s little or no competition, there’s little reason to remain cheap. Warehouse work will be one of the first areas to be heavily impacted by robotics, so there goes another huge swath of employment.
On the other hand, Amazon and eBay have created millions (literally millions) of micro-retailers.
They have lowered the barriers to going into business to almost zero.
There is a big risk involved in opening a brick and mortar store. The risk involved in selling through Amazon or eBay is almost zero.